Posts Tagged Education
How to avoid another exam board scandal
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 15/12/2011
By David Green
The Telegraph’s brilliant exposure of the behaviour of some exam boards should not be dismissed with a couple of sacrificial sackings. It revealed profound flaws, not just in our school system, but also in the way our democracy is currently functioning. The attitudes behind the scandal are closely allied to the self-serving atmosphere in Parliament that led some MPs to fiddle their expenses. Deception of the people had became the norm, whether it was creative use of second homes, or manipulating exam results. The rot always starts at the top, and getting rid of the hapless examiners who got caught will make little difference unless we go much further.
Debugging the curriculum
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 14/06/2011
Via Bishop Hill, we learn that schools will no longer be required to teach climate change as part of the science curriculum. This is a good step, not so much because of the political controversies surrounding climate change policy, but because its inclusion helped to set a bad precedent. It has become a common tactic of influential interest groups (whether on the right or the left) to try and get their pet issues inserted into educational policy so that they can be advocated nationally to the detriment of other important content. This is one of the drivers of unnecessary centralisation in the education system. This process diminishes teachers’ professional autonomy, reduces their local accountability to parents, and forces them to waste time complying with Government directives rather than delivering engaging lessons. Moreover, in concentrating on topical issues rather than the knowledge necessary to grasp subject areas, children’s educational horizons have been narrowed.
Reoffending Prison(Provid)er
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Crime, Education, Security on 18/01/2011
After a year of industrial unrest, damning assessments, and accusation of falsifying records, the country’s largest further education college has once again come under fire. The Manchester College (TMC) now faces an investigation by the Skills Funding Agency over its offender learning at HMP&YOI Reading, after a whistleblower alleged that the education provider regularly receives overpayments of public money.
State Sponsored Kidnap?
Posted by Carolina Bracken in Civil Liberty, Education, Human Rights on 15/12/2010
In June 2009, 7 year old Dominic Johansson was snatched by the Swedish authorities as he and his family boarded a plane bound for India. He was immediately taken into care and his parents permitted only one short visit every five weeks. There are no allegations of gross neglect; there is no evidence of serious abuse. Dominic was taken from his parents solely because he was being homeschooled.
Faith in Free Schools
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education, Religion on 29/07/2010
The coalition Government’s ‘free schools’ proposal hasn’t so much split religious believers from atheists, but more those who accept parent choice as a progressive reform, and those who reject it. Despite the fears from all sides, there is a good chance that all of Britain’s diverse belief systems will benefit if schools gain more independence.
Philistines and other social problems
It was a depressing moment when this news story made the front page of the BBC website ‘ Pupils forced to listen to Mozart’. The head of West Park School in Derby, Brian Walker, punishes his students in detention by making them listen to classical music, “featuring Elgar, Mozart, Verdi and Bach.” They are often also forced to watch an educational video, such as the ’story of math’.